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And in reading the Web site, I see that they raise this piont, too. In fact, it's the entire point of the site, so your comment is particularly ill-placed. They do attempt to address my question and raise some interesting points, but much of the site is a collection of lies and half-truths. Much of it's pretty offensive.

And to be clear: I do think the distinction between democracy and republic is important, but most of the time people issue that correction, it seems irrelevant to the topic at hand. T

I found the writing offensive because I find lies that promote bigotry and intolerance to be offensive. For example, their argument against multiculturalism is that if the concept was valid "there wouldn’t be such a tremendous number of people worldwide wanting to take up residency in the United States..." This "rebuttal" to multiculturalism is typical of people who pervert the argument, whether knowingly or not. Many of the people trying to get over to the United States are doing so for money or t

I didn't read the article, but when parts of the Bible put on a bumper sticker *are* prosecuted as hate speech in Canada, then it *is* scary.

Granted, one could note that with the incident in question, the offender was, in the view of many, making a de facto threat against homosexuals (I don't recall the specific slogan, but it basically said something about gays being killed, and had a biblical reference to support it).

However, just as many people cannot understand the distinction I just offfered, many ot

Well, atheism is certainly not a religion. Atheism rejects the idea that a civilisation, a century, or the whole humanity can be the center of the universe, because there is no such center. The very whole purpose of religion is to propose and build such a center, by a process which is psychotic in nature.

Atheism rejects the idea that a civilisation, a century, or the whole humanity can be the center of the universe, because there is no such center. The very whole purpose of religion is to propose and build such a center, by a process which is psychotic in nature.

Your definition of religion is flawed. Defining it in terms of psychosis is nonsense, and many religions don't propose a center at all, such as Hinduism. Further, I can't speak for most religions, but it is a severe mischaracterization to say that Christianity's "purpose" is to propose that anything but God himself is the center of the universe.

But worse, it really ignores the context of the discussion. The operative thing in that context is to define religion in terms of how the Framers intended it. Did they mean only belief systems which recognized a higher power, or center, or did they mean any set of scientifically unprovable beliefs, a faith, about how the world and universe work together, that are likely to cause rifts between people of different faiths, that should therefore not be legislated for or against?

The Framers didn't care about the nature of the faith, only that it is a faith, one that should not be legislated for or against, one that would cause problems for the country if it were. It seems pretty clear to me that this is what they intended, and that atheism necessarily fits that definition: it is obviously scientifically unprovable and requires a belief, a faith, in these unprovable tenets.

I challenge you to present one, just one, argument that even begins to point to the nonexistence of God

I mean, of course, a scientific argument.

Hell, I'd like to even see an experiment postulated that could possibly, even if the test is not necessarily feasible, prove that God does not exist. That is to say: I am doubting that you can even come up with a theoretical method by which science could prove God does not exist. I've never seen one.

I would say that atheism, in the context of the First Amendment, is a religion. In fact, a few years ago a case was decided against a teacher/school that didn't allow a child to do a book report on what a bible story turned into a children's book.

The decision boiled down to the state can't promote non-religion or anti-religion or however you want to look at it.

Regardless of how anyone feels about atheism, the fact in the context of this journal entry and this article is that each person is entitled to whatever beliefs he wants, right or wrong, faith-related or not. Part of pudge's point, which I believe you missed in your haste to apply corrective action, was that we cannot and should not legally distinguish between beliefs as being "religious" or "non-religious." You want to believe something and make choices and have whatever rational or irrati

--J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

we cannot and should not legally distinguish between beliefs as being "religious" or "non-religious." That's a very sane statement.

That said, understand also that's it's offensive for an atheist, who defines him/herself as out of any religious system, to be equated precisely to what he wants to evade. Just tell a GNU advocate that free software is just one special kind of commercial software, and you'll see how he responds. (Reformulated in software terms, it's now obvious that this was a troll. I must apol

That said, understand also that's it's offensive for an atheist, who defines him/herself as out of any religious system, to be equated precisely to what he wants to evade.

Okay, but I think some people here keep getting offended too easily. I could get offended by the fact that you implied the cause of all religion is psychosis, but I'm going to be bigger than that. I could further be offended by the fact that you mistakenly identified the purpose of religion as being to propose a particular race or ce

--J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers

understand also that's it's offensive for an atheist, who defines him/herself as out of any religious system, to be equated precisely to what he wants to evade

You have a faith, an unprovable and unscientific set of beliefs, that says God does not exist.

Either that, or you are not what most people call an "atheist." This is the essential component of atheism as popularly understood, as the term is popularly used, by an overwhelming majority of the people who use the word, and adhere to the system of bel

The question of whether God exists is outside the very scope of science.

If our understanding of quantum mechanics and relativity is correct, then there are physical limits to how much insight we can gain about the Universe; because they impose limits on how much of the Universe we can subject to the scientific method of theoretic prediction and observational review. This means we will never